GALLEPOSO, MARRY VHEL L.

BSED FL 1-1
Contemporary World

1. Explain briefly how the Shock Doctrine, according to the film, was used to impose neo-
liberal policies in developing countries like Philippines.

• Before watching the documentary of Klein, I thought "Shock Doctrine has something
to do with experimenting people or whatever. But of course, it was actually half and
half. "Shock Doctrine" according to the film, is "The systematic raiding of the public
sphere in the aftermath of a disaster, when people are too focused on the emergency,
on their daily concerns, to protect their interests". On the beginning of the
documentary, it was said there that professor of Economics in University of Chicago,
Milton Friedman, made an experiment to his patients which is called "shock therapy".
The goal of the experiment according to this, is to continue or to encourage society to
accept a form of deregulated capitalism. He made this kind of crisis, experimenting
people, to implement this type of neoliberalism.
The Asian Financial crisis which happened in 1997 was also included on the events.
A lot of Corporate Elites are in conjunction with the government and unfair regimes
in some of the countries have sought to profit out of times of disaster. Some of the
people sympathize to them, but neoliberalists see opportunity.

2. According to the film, how are financial institutions like the World Bank and IMF involved
in the rise of disaster capitalism?

• So basically, based on what I understand, World Bank and IMF or International

Monetary Fund are run by the Western nations and neo-colonial powers of the U.S.
Want to save the world? Sell it off! That time, the era of "structural adjustment", also
known as "the dictatorship of debt", countries had nowhere to go for their debts but
the IMF and World Bank. By the time Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and
Republican politicians started talking about ‘clean slates’ and exciting opportunities,
it was clear to Klein that this was now the preferred method of advancing corporate
goals. She concluded there was a fundamental change in the drive to ‘liberate’ markets.
She had witnessed business-friendly policies imposed through arm-twisting at WTO
summits, or as conditions attached to IMF loans. The three trademark demands –
privatization, government deregulation and deep cuts to social spending – were
unpopular with citizens, but when the agreements were signed there was still at least
the pretext of mutual consent. Now the same ideological program was being imposed
under foreign military occupation or immediately following a natural disaster.
3. Who are the winners and losers in an economic shock therapy? Give a specific example of
a neoliberal policy in the Philippines and demonstrate who the winners and losers of this
neoliberal policy are in the Philippine context?

• The Economic shock therapy in the documentary was indeed a negative impact for me
because it simply doesn't give justice to all as what've Klein said. If there are people
benefits this kind of process, it would only be the neoliberalists. In the Philippines,
neoliberalism first came in the form of the structural adjustment program imposed by
the World Bank in the early 1980’s, in the latter’s effort to strengthen the economy’s
capacity to service its massive external debt. Structural adjustment helped trigger the
economic crisis of the early 1980’s, its contractionary effects being magnified by the
onset of the global recession. The crisis was the country’s worst since the Second
World War, but the role of neoliberal economics in precipitating it was shrouded by
its coinciding with the deep political crisis triggered by the Aquino assassination in
August 1983. To most Filipinos, Marcos was the cause of both crises. To summarize
these, neo-liberalism did nothing so much positive impact in reality as what Klein said.